


Let's just be friends

by SrebrnaFH



Series: Double Pride Double Trouble - series [7]
Category: Das doppelte Lottchen | Lottie and Lisa - Erich Kästner, Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Accidental mutual friendzoning, Breakup, Communication Issues, Crying, F/M, Feelings of Inadequacy, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Lond-Distance Relationship fail, Long-Distance Relationship, Low Self-Esteem, Teen Romance, friendzoning, imposter syndrome, long-term friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:21:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24896092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SrebrnaFH/pseuds/SrebrnaFH
Summary: Mina is crying, Rose is angry, Teddy is desperate and Andre has a sudden revelation.Another oneshot in DPDT world.
Relationships: OC - Mina Bennet/OC - Teddy Strickland, OC - Rose Darcy/OC - Andre de Bourgh
Series: Double Pride Double Trouble - series [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1273559
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	Let's just be friends

**Author's Note:**

> Reviewed and checked by a lovely reader from meryton.com/aha forum.

She groaned painfully as she dropped prone on the layer of hay in the loft. André was already there, with a bottle of cider and a box of tortilla wraps to share.

"The world."

He made a small 'go on' sound.

"The world sucks."

Andre opened the bottle, still silent.

"Sometimes I just don't understand people."

"That sounds like man trouble for me."

She sighed.

"Yeah. You could call it that."

"Someone I should beat up?"

"Not if you value your pretty face. Teddy might not be at his best, but he might chin you out of pure reflex, and when that boy punches, you stay punched."

André poured the cider into two plastic cups they kept in the corner just for that purpose.

"Now I'm intrigued," he admitted. "Do go on, dear."

"Well—" she took a mouthful of the cider and relished in the bubbly, tart feeling. "He and Mina did something abysmally stupid."

"She's pregnant."

Rose choked on the cider and had to cough for several seconds.

"I seriously hope not _that_ stupid. Especially considering what's going on."

####

Rose looked helplessly at the small, curled-up figure in the other bed and sighed, trying not to get too angry. Because if she got angry enough, some rugby-captain-turned-engineering-student would end up with a shiner like none he had earned on the field.

She knew that Mina had a day out planned with Teddy - since that boy had taken first an internship and then an additional credit course, they had not seen each other in nearly a month - and she came home from the swimming pool expecting a day of peaceful packing and an evening (late, very late evening) of being entertained with crazy stories about Teddy's uni buddies, gossip about what the first year away from home might look like, discussion of Mina’s college plans and fears and maybe some interesting ideas for the next two weeks - including Rose or not - since these would be the last two weeks the three of them would spend in one place for quite some time.

What she was met with, however, was Mina turned into a shapeless lump under her quilt. And crying quietly. At ten in the morning.

Mina didn’t cry. OK, that was not true, she did, obviously, like every healthy human. But since moving to Pemberley she had not had a situation in which she would just— drop on her bed and cry like this. Yes, she had cried when Teddy asked her out for their first proper date and Dad grudgingly agreed (muttering something about stubborn young fools). She had cried when they both got the grades replacing their GCSEs and Mina got an A in maths and they both did pretty well on all other subjects (getting, to the bemusement of each respective parent, A* in their modern language assessments). Teddy had dropped by that day, keeping the required distance and leaving a respectable wildflower bouquet in the hall, before blowing Mina a kiss and roaring away on his bike (and Mina cried a bit over that, too, since they hadn't been able to meet ever since the isolation rules had been imposed).

Not that Rose ever expected any of them to fail, but Mina was by nature less optimistic...

And Mina cried when they got their A-level results.

And there was no Teddy to hold her - or even to visit for a moment - since Teddy was half a country away, taking his own third term exams, so Rose hugged her and hoped that he would call later that day... (he didn’t, because he apparently fell asleep after cramming all night and trying to stay awake for the exam, so he was absolved, but still).

Which basically meant that if Mina was crying, it probably had something to do with school, or Teddy, or both. School was not an issue anymore, so that left Teddy.

It literally couldn’t have been anything else - any potentially hurtful people Mina avoided and ignored, as long as she could, or punched, if she couldn’t, or hid from behind Teddy, depending on the mood. She had trained herself not to let strangers' opinions and words to get to her (even if that was still a work in progress), but she was still vulnerable when it came to family and close friends. This risk Mina minimised by not really developing any closer connection to new people.

Basically, Mina had Rose. To some extent, Jackie, Adele and Joana became lovely, supportive additions, but still, not the same. And, apart from Joana, they were family, so that wasn't really like Mina had an extensive social circle. She had their aunts (lots of them, yes) and uncles, but again, family. Mom and Dad, the same.

And she had Teddy.

Nobody else was allowed to get near enough to her to give them the ability to hurt her.

Since none of the others were in Derbyshire and she could not imagine _Dad_ having done something bad enough to warrant this kind of hopeless crying, by the process of logical elimination, that left Teddy as the culprit.

“Minnie...” she tugged the blanket higher on her sister’s shoulders and patted it cautiously. “Mina, do you want to talk?”

A negative sound came from under the green quilt.

“Hug?”

A confirmation.

That was at least something she could do, so Rose toed off her slippers and slid under the heavy covers, pulling Mina into a tight hold, hiding her face in her twin’s messy hair. Mina’s hair still smelled of their shared minty shampoo - and rain, and coffee. She felt her t-shirt sleeve slowly growing damp with Mina’s tears and she tightened the hug.

“Do I have to kill anyone?”

Mina shook her head and burrowed in closer.

“Is there _anything_ I can do?”

“No,” came, soft and tired. “Just hold me.”

####

"That doesn't sound well."

"Tell me about it. She was _wrecked_. Like, properly and seriously wrecked."

"Am I allowed to make cooing sympathetic noises?"

"No."

"Aw."

She swatted him with a longer piece of grass and he caught it in his teeth, grinning.

"Idiot."

"I adore you anyway."

####

Lunchtime was quiet.

Mom was still at the seaside with Alex and aunt Kitty and her trio. Dad was buried under the mountain of paperwork related to the renovation of the old mansion ground floor, basement and stables. Mrs Reynolds was in the middle of checking the edits on her second book (”Practical advice for a housekeeper in a mansion too grand for modern needs”). Rose would have eaten alone, if not for the fact that Dad had already migrated to the living area with his papers and was in fact looking for Mina.

“I need her to review all this stuff - she was the one to set up the renovation schedule for tapestries and carpets, but I don’t have the document here, and then the basement crew is asking for her opinion about the colour scheme for the missing parts of floor— Don’t look at me like that, they apparently prefer talking to her about this stuff. I’m just the guy with the wallet to pay for it all.”

“At least she will have something to keep her busy.”

“Yes, I need her busy with that today,” Dad pulled the potato casserole out of the oven. “Is she coming downstairs? Is she back already? I hope that boy isn’t keeping her out all until midnight—”

Rose glanced up from where she was mixing a salad.

“Ah, she isn’t hungry, I think,” she said flatly. “The kind of ‘not hungry’ that comes from crying for half of the afternoon and falling asleep on your sister. I’ll put a plate for her in the fridge, she will eat when she feels up to it.”

Dad grunted and sat at the kitchen table with his own plate.

“What did that boy do?”

Sometimes it was scary, how close in the way of thinking she was to Dad and Mina to Mom. Nurture and nature, all that rot, but it _worked_. The way Dad reacted to stuff - and the way Rose reacted to it - especially when Mina was concerned - was very much identical. She saw the same instant activation of the protection mode that she had developed since Mina and Mom had moved (back) in.

“I’m not sure,” she sighed. “She isn’t talking. But we know Teddy, right. I know him, you know him, uncle Richard knows him. Basically, we know that he is incapable of being purposefully malicious, or anything even in the vicinity.”

“Which leaves something that happened _not_ on purpose.”

She stabbed a cheesy potato wedge with her fork and turned it a few times, thinking.

“They always talk stuff out,” she reminded them both. "Even random stuff that happened by total accident."

“Yeah, they are about as likely to argue as Jane and Charles. Which is, not at all. I’ve seen these two resolve the most annoying conflicts just by a simple exchange of opinions, agreement on the compromise and a kiss.”

She chewed on a piece of yellow bean.

“Yeah. And Mina _hates_ quarrelling. I mean, you know. She can’t stand it.”

They all knew. Any kind of personal conflict was a strain on Mina, since her anxiety interpreted anything above ‘a heated discussion’ as an attack. She could absolutely argue with (semi)strangers or casual acquaintances, or perceived enemies (see: Aunt Catherine), but never with someone she liked. Or loved.

“And that boy worships the ground she walks on. I know that look in a guy’s eyes. I’ve seen it often enough in the mirror.”

“So, again, we can agree that neither of them would on purpose instigate an argument - one serious enough to have Mina crying into her pillow for half the day - and that if it was something random, they would have talked about it and come to an agreement.”

Dad took off his glasses and rubbed his nose.

“Unless Teddy changed a lot during that last year, that would be my opinion, too.”

“That leaves us with...”

“Honest misunderstanding?”

She nodded slowly, staring into her tea.

“So, Teddy did something, Mina misinterpreted it, felt hurt enough _not_ to talk to him about it, and now she is crying and he is probably honestly bewildered and has no idea what had happened.”

“Or Mina did something, Teddy misunderstood, reacted weirdly...”

Rose sighed.

“Possible. I don’t have a frame of reference, you know. They never did all that crap that other couples did, like huge drama scenes, silent treatments, quiet days, all that sh— stuff. They hugged out every tiniest difference in opinion. Neither was ever jealous of the other, too. I mean— You know that there are girls who resent the fact that their guy goes to watch a movie without them, even if they hate the genre?”

Dad frowned and made a surprised sound around the piece of casserole he had just bit into.

“You know. He wants to see a car chase movie, she hates car chases, but she also hates him going to the cinema with his mates. Makes a scene about some random crap. She wants to go see a Bollywood musical, but he makes fun of it, yet, he doesn’t want her to go with her friends, because.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Pretty much. I mean, Mom pushed you and uncle Richard and Evan out the door the last time you started talking about football and considering if you can make it to the game...”

They snorted in unison.

“And I’m not coming between your Mom and her musical movie nights with Georgiana and Lucy.”

“Yeah, so, Teddy and Mina do the same thing. He hates Bollywood, so I go with her. She detests horrors, so he goes with Thomas and André. Everyone is happy, each group has what they wanted... And Mina has never ever made him the kind of scene some of his team members had to go through about spending time just with his mates.”

“And I dearly hope he doesn’t interfere with the time she spends with you, Jackie or Delly, or that Joana girl,” Dad grunted.

“They are both so annoyingly... thoughtful.”

“Well, I haven’t heard of you engaging in any kind of jealousy scenes either, over any of your beaus.”

“Daaaad...”

“What? How many had there been, four?”

“Five, if you count Bastian,” she mumbled.

“I don’t believe I remember a Bastian...”

“He’s the one Teddy had thrown in the puddle.”

“Ah. The two day wonder.”

(Bastian had a problem with understanding the idea of personal space and the word ‘no’, so he lasted less than forty-eight hours - from Saturday afternoon proto-date over some ice cream until Monday midday at school, which was culminated by Teddy pulling Bastian away from Rose by his collar and pushing him into the largest, scummiest and muddiest puddle in the school yard, after he had noticed that Rose had been cornered during the lunch hour.

It was satisfying, and Bastian had just enough sense not to raise a ruckus, considering there were several witnesses that had been already moving in their direction, ready to intervene, when Teddy reacted to Mina's request to help Rose get rid of him.

It was nice having a proto-brother-in-law like that around.

Well.

Had been.

Until he had hurt her little sister.)

“Jealousy scenes are not my style,” she sniffed, raising her chin. “If a guy tried two-timing, I’d dump his ass quicker than you can say ‘exclusive’. Sorry, Dad, but that’s pure truth.”

She found herself pulled into a hug.

“I’m proud of you, sweetie,” Dad growled. “If a boy can’t make up his mind and pick you, well... why should you wait for him to get his head straight on?”

“Not that it happened, mind you. Most of them— Well, Bastian you know. Terry was jealous of my competition preparations, Peter mistook Mina for me and made _me_ a scene about Teddy— And Luke and Benjamin tried to control the amount of time I spent with André. Like, seriously, what the hell. Teddy has never said a word when André was riding out with Mina to exercise Star when I was sick.”

“Which only makes Teddy look like a shining beacon of reason, compared to his peers.”

“Until now. Whatever it is that he did.”

“Obviously.”

Because it definitely wasn’t Mina’s fault. Had it been Mina, she would be sitting there, wrecked with nerves, waiting for Rose in order to hash it out together. Had it been Mina, the issue would have been over by now, because her sister hated conflicts.

It simply had to be Teddy’s fault.

She stood up, wiping her lips with a napkin.

“Leave some for Mina,” she nodded towards the oven dish. “I’ll be back later. I have some business in town.”

Dad shook his head.

“I doubt he is still sitting in the same cafe they had been meeting in.”

“Worth a try. And if not, I can always drop by the Stricklands and see if he’s home.”

“And that motorcycle of his is easy to recognise on the street.”

“Yup. Wish me luck and patience.”

“Better you than me. At least if you hit him, he will still be usable after that, if she still wants him.”

####

"Rose to the rescue?"

"Don't even start."

"Well, definitely better you than uncle William. He makes me feel short... And comparing his Hector to my Thunder? My poor horse looks like a _pony_. I'm not saying your Dad looks like he bench-presses small tractors—"

She snorted and turned to her side, looking at him.

"Yeah, definitely better me than Dad. Not sure if Dad would have gotten anything out of him."

"And you did?"

"Oh. Yes."

####

Rose found Teddy rather quickly. He didn’t in fact stay in the same cafe she knew Mina had met him in, but the motorbike was still there, and she only had to look around to find him sitting at one of the picnic tables on the green, staring into a paper cup.

Walking down the short-mown lane to his table, she psyched herself up to the task. She wasn’t a fan of arguments either, but she did better at them than Mina. So. She would argue with her sister’s boyfriend on her behalf. Obviously.

“Care to explain why the fuck is my sister crying her eyes out for the last five hours?”

He jerked up, looking at her wildly.

“If you hurt her in any way, I have several ways of hiding your body so well they’ll find you as an archaeological dig in the next millennium.”

Probably only at that point she noticed that Theodore Strickland, who hated coffee and never ate sweets (unless they were something Mina had baked) was sitting in front of a large paper cup of latte and a plastic plate with a piece of cheesecake on it.

Both untouched.

“Mina is crying?” he asked so quietly it was hard to work it out over the traffic noises.

“Yeah. And since there is nobody else that could get to her that much - and she would not try to hide the reason if it was someone unimportant - that makes you the main suspect. So, Strickland. What. The. Hell.”

He sighed, shook his head, raised the cup to his lips, took a long sip... And promptly spat it out on the grass, coughing and grimacing.

“What is... Why is this coffee?”

“It’s what you ordered, sunshine,” she uttered, trying to not roll her eyes. “Now, either you tell me...”

“Mina dumped me.”

Wh...

Mi...

Rose blinked.

“Why?” was the first sound that made it through.

“Because we will be too busy with our respective education to maintain a proper relationship and I deserve to have options to date someone that I can see daily and she doesn’t want to be weighing me down. I think I quoted her precisely here. She wants me to have...” he shook his head. “Rose, what did I... Did I do something wrong? I know it’s far, but I thought it could still work... The Army is paying for my advanced courses and they get to pick the college, so I am stuck with their choice, but I thought we talked about this, that she was OK-ish with how the last year...! When I came for the Easter break, she seemed...”

Teddy paused and shook his head, obviously lost.

“Did you just allow her to tell you that and let her leave?” she groaned. “You know Mina, there is no way...”

“She sat down, never looked at me, never touched me. She just sat opposite me and said ‘Teddy, I think we have to be reasonable about it,’ completely serious, like an extra from a period drama breaking up an engagement. Setting the fiance free or something.”

Rose lowered her head to the tabletop with a moan.

She loved Mina with all her heart - more than she loved either of their parents - but sometimes she just couldn’t with that girl. All could be going OK, life was perfect and they were happy and all of sudden, despite all that time spent away from London, Mina’s insecurities were back at the steering wheel and driving her into ideas like that.

“I think we can both agree that it was idiotic.”

“Definitely.”

“And you don’t _want_ to be 'set free'?”

“Not at all.”

“Do you want to pursue other girls on campus or off?”

“Dear Lord, **no**! I don’t want any random girls, I want Mina. Well, only if she wants _me_ , obviously, but--”

The level of kicked puppy vibes Teddy was emitting was hard to stand. Rose rubbed her mouth and sniffed.

“OK. Let’s see what we can do about it.”

####

"Oh, the heartbreak."

"You don't know everything. And I mean... Both of them... Urgh."

"Use your words, Miss Darcy."

"Urgh is a word, Mister De Bourgh."

"Urgh is a primitive, soulful expression of generalised pain. I need the deets, girl."

"I'll give you the 'deets'."

####

When she came back home and checked their bedroom, Mina was awake, sitting on her bed, in the pool of messy blankets, looking at her phone with a grim face. Rose plucked the mobile from her fingers, easily avoiding the weak attempt at recovering it.

“OK. Spill. What the hell has been going through your head when you dumped Teddy Strickland, the paragon of male beauty and charm in the county and neighbourhood?”

Mina spluttered for a moment and tried to follow Rose, but the covers around her incapacitated her.

“I— I—”

“You dumped Teddy because of the very flimsy idea that he would what, be better off without you?”

“That he shouldn’t feel guilty for not being here, or, or for not coming in July when I was sick, or that he doesn’t have time to go to the movies with me, because he’s cramming for the additional courses... And he should be, like, able to find someone who can be there for him, because I can’t. And-and he deserves someone who can understand what he is saying and not just goes ‘duh?’ all the time...”

“Mina Darcy...” Rose trailed off, trying to find the correct words. “Have you dumped the love of your life because you feel too stupid to be with him?”

Her sister sniffed wetly, and wasn't that a disgusting, unromantic sound if Rose had ever heard one. She threw a package of tissues into her sister's lap and watched as she wiped her face and blew her nose, waiting for her to continue.

“Correction, I _am_ too stupid. I’m just about smart enough to know my own limitations. My maths was never the best, despite the exam results, but I think I’ll do OK at the uni, anyway programming is about logic, not about higher maths...”

Rose dropped heavily to sit next to her on the bed.

“You little idiot. And I say this with all the possible affection. What the hell are you talking about?”

Mina sniffed.

“Teddy will meet a nice, smart girl and she will know what he is talking about and not have to smile — and — and nod — like some — some little idiot, yes — like she has — has no idea — but she will have — because there are girls — and they are smart — and funny — and he will be — better off — with one of them — and...!”

Rose knuckled her eyes and groaned, listening to Mina stutter thorough her explanation.

####

“He left and they became completely and totally desynchronised, or something,” she moaned. “Like they are speaking two different brands of English.”

“It happens,” Andre picked a straw apart. “What now?”

“Teddy is leaving tomorrow for his early September classes. I can only hope that by the time of the Christmas break they will both grow up a bit and this mess will be resolved.”

“But _what_ happened? Why did she...?”

"You won't believe it, but— I mean I couldn't. Maybe it's a man thing and you will get it. Teddy, in his infinite naivety - or maybe a case of an extreme and sudden drop of IQ - decided to tell Mina stories about his uni, centred mostly around the girls in STEM programs. Because, you see, my little sister has contracted an ugly case of an impostor syndrome and ever since she has been accepted at Sheffield, she has been fretting that she is not good enough. She isn't as good as Mom, obviously, so she thinks she knows nothing, zilch, nada. And she shared her fears with Teddy. And Teddy, wanting to cheer her up, started talking about his university and the female students there and how well they are doing in the class, and how nice they were and— You see where I'm going with that?"

André groaned and flopped to his stomach.

"What?"

"For such a smart guy, he is so _dense_."

"Indeed."

"He told her that there were many smart girls at the university with him."

"When she was having a lovely attack of impostor syndrome. Yes."

"And she internalised that, went home, slept on it, went on a 'date' with him the day after..."

"And 'set him free'. Because when someone kicks your self esteem in its metaphorical knee, you can lash out or you can give up and decide you are not worthy of having anything good in your life. And then there is Mina who will do just that, and wrap it in the explanation of doing it for the good of the other person. Like, seriously, London had to have something in the air, because I'm like 99,9999% identical with her, but this? This I'm not getting."

"You were brought up differently, Rosie. You already know you are good at what you do, and she is still somehow convinced she is not enough."

"Yeah, Aunt Catherine was an overbearing, annoying witch, but she couldn't tell me I can't ride a horse, because I had the evidence I could - and she knew nothing about horses, while dear old grandpa Bennet _could_ criticise Mina about her science grades because he is an engineer. He is like Mina's personal Palpatine, you know. All these voices she hears, and it's really all him."

"She will do OK. She already knows more about computers and servers and networks than most of the guys I know that picked Computer Science at the university."

"But at IT programmes..."

"Guys play on the 'easy' level, I know."

She sighed and nodded. They both knew the spiel, considering Mom, Mina _and_ André's little sister were all in that field, to some degree.

André pulled up the heavy blanket and stretched out on it, pulling her to his side.

"And following what had to be a delightful conversation with Teddy, she went home and cried herself to sleep."

"Well, part of the time she spent crying on me. But yes."

"And you went to talk to her lovely, truly bewildered lover, who just got dumped for trying his best to lift her spirits and is about as happy as she is with how it turned out."

"Yeah."

"Did anyone explain to said well-intentioned idiot what exactly had happened?"

Rose huffed.

"I did, obviously. On the second round, since she had fallen asleep before I left, but I called him later— Anyway, already on the first attempt, he had explained his side, and I asked him some pointed questions. The way he went slightly pale at the idea of picking another girl over Mina was satisfying. I didn't go there spilling any of her secrets - well, I didn't have any to spill, since she didn't say anything until after I got back home - so he doesn't know how bad her impostor syndrome had hit her, but I alluded to it over the phone. Well, at least I tried to convey the general idea that cheering someone up over their perceived inferiority should not consist of telling them that you personally know many interesting people who managed to work it out in a similar situation. Especially when these are people you meet daily, unlike the person you are trying to cheer up. I might have inferred that it is a rather cruel thing to do and suggested it is similar approach to that of some parents who always compare their own kids to the neighbours' or to the kids' classmates."

Andre looked at the cider bottle suspiciously and, finding it empty, reached to his bag for another one.

"And how—" he grunted. "What did Teddy say?"

"Well, he was worried. I mean, he feels guilty and when I told him, and kind of ordered him to put himself in her shoes... He wanted to come and talk to her immediately, but I told him he'd have to wait."

"Harsh."

"Not wishing to put Mina in a tight spot, more like. She is—" she sighed. "She'd kill me for saying this, but she isn't very, you know. Resilient. She would have cried, and we both cry ugly, and I'm not being funny here, splotches and red and stuff, all over. So, I'd rather have her at least get a full night sleep."

"How very sisterly of you."

"It's the best I can do for her right now. I wish I could say I understand - and on some level I do, because I know where all of this is coming from - but I can't seriously commiserate with her choices... I don't get— I—" she huffed in exasperation. "If I had something like they had, there is no way in hell I'd give it up. Not like that."

"Well, you had several boyfriends over the years..."

"Don't. Just don't. None of them were worth fighting for. I was talking to Dad just yesterday and— None of them even— I don't know. Maybe I'm just picking the wrong guys."

She shouldn't be saying things like that to André, most probably. Not after he had been her friend - second best friend after Mina - not _that_. Who the hell told people stuff like that...? She sounded like someone from a teenage romcom—

"You know _my_ exes," he pointed out. "In the long run, none of them was anything to write home about. At least three were jealous of my horse. One _dumped_ me because of me spending time with Thunder. Seriously."

"I told you then and I will tell you again. Donny was a dick. Who starts to date a rider and is then jealous of their horse?"

"Apart from Terry, you mean? I seem to remember a picturesque little scene of 'you spend more time with that Star of yours than with me'."

She moaned and thumped her forehead on his shoulder.

"I walked right into that one."

"Yes you did."

He nudged her with a freshly filled glass and Rose took it and sipped the cider, relishing the refreshing coolness.

"I just wish I could find someone I could depend on not to try to control me. I thought that since Mina had found Teddy, and they were so perfect for each other, I had a chance, too. But now I don't know."

"Not every good relationship has to be a teenage romance or a fairytale. Look at your parents—"

"Cinderella and her Prince, modern take."

"My parents—?"

"They met at a country dance. It's already like a folk tale."

"Your aunt Kitty?"

"She lost her wallet and he followed her for fifty miles on his bike. Stinks of destiny and fate to high heavens."

He chewed on a blade of grass for a moment, silently, before shrugging and draining his glass.

"And you deserve a proper someone, too," she pointed out. "Blokes don't know a good thing when they see it, apparently. Seriously, dumping André de Bourgh because you can't stand his horse? How stupid is that?"

André pulled her closer and pressed a kiss to her temple.

"Thank you for that vote of support. Apparently I attract only stupid boys. Not that girls are much better, mind you. Susana - I met her last autumn - was all enthusiastic about me being a rider, but the reality of trying to stay around someone smelling of horse turned out to be too much for her."

"Oh my. That's silly. How can someone disconnect the two in their minds? It's like dating a carpenter and being surprised with callouses on his hands, or whatever."

"She was even more surprised when she found out I had a summer job at a vet emergency clinic and did nights."

She moaned, covering her face.

"Do you think we will ever find someone tolerable?" she asked softly. "We both try — and—"

"There has to be someone out there for each of us," he pointed out reasonably. "I mean, statistically speaking, I should at some point meet a person who will at the same time tolerate my hobbies, not be annoyed with my friends and want me enough to ignore the rest."

"Your friends are cool," she mumbled. "Sven might be a bit loud, but come on, the others from your club are actually rather nice boys."

"I'll tell them you called them 'nice boys', just you wait. They'll be merciless the next time you play pool with them."

"Seriously, don't."

"I seriously will."

She punched him on a shoulder and he mock-squealed in pain, caught her fist in his and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. She felt all air leave her lungs in a rush.

"André... I..."

She looked down at him just as he looked up.

"Um."

André's lips were smooth and tasted of cider.

She was so lost in the novelty of that sensation that she only noticed they were moving when he rolled to his back and pulled her on top of him, still kissing her, until his head dropped to the blanket and he laughed softly.

"André...!"

He pulled her in closer, huffing into her hair.

"Tell me I didn't just misread you terribly, please. Because, you see, I just had this absolutely crazy idea, and correct me if I'm wrong, that it is very possible that we've been friendzoning each other for years."

"I'm not sure we can call it friendzoning if neither of us seriously noticed that the other is shooting them down... It was more of a case of desynchronisation of availability."

He hummed softly, frowning.

"Ah, yes. After that market thing, we didn't meet until the spring break—"

"And then you were dating that asshole who later turned out to be dealing 'horse supplements'."

"Well, that had been a marked error in judgement on my part. And when I got rid of him, you were already with that boring cellist."

"And when I dumped him, you and Donny..."

He pushed up on his elbows and kissed her silent.

"Desynchronisation or friendzoning, whatever. As I look at it now, I'm not sure who is worse, us or these two lovebirds."

"No longer lovebirds, remember."

"The way he had been looking at her all that time? It got _me_ weak in the knees and I'm not into burly rugby players."

"Oh? And what _are_ you into...?"

"Rose Darcy, apparently."

####

André pulled her closer as they watched the afternoon sun from the hay loft and listened to the horses making their horse sounds below them.

"When do you need to go back? Won't Mina need you?"

"Dad told me he'd be taking her over to the main house for the whole day, because they need to plan the cleaning and replacement of flooring in the main ballroom. I'm not sure how much of a make-work it is, but she seemed happy to join him and I am happy it's not me doing it."

"Hmm?"

She shrugged and leaned on his shoulder.

"I'm not as much a fan of the old pile as Mina is. I mean, I'd be sorry if something happened to it, or if Dad had to sell it or whatever, but— She seems to seriously _relish_ all that research that goes into ordering the right fabric and making sure we have the correct kind of furniture cleaning cloth or putting the kitchen downstairs into more traditional order than our great-grandfather made it. And she likes working with all the estate crews and she still thinks it's fun to do all the food processing stuff. Did I tell you we're finally getting the juice press this year? Dad created a separate little company under Pemberley estate umbrella, set it up as a cooperative with our neighbours and in a week or so they will start bringing surplus apples in for pressing and bagging. And Mina will be managing it all, with Dad's help."

"Whoa. That's a big responsibility."

"Well, not like Dad will leave her to deal with it alone. She will have staff and an accountant and all this, and the office in the admin building, but she will be responsible for making sure she doesn't take too much on the contract, that there is enough time to process our own apples, that there are bags, labels and so on."

"That's cool. And how do _you_ feel about it? I mean—" he trailed off, lost. "You are the older one."

"And I'm the one that's leaving in two weeks," she said softly. "Mina is the one that stays home."

"Yeah. About that. What would you say if I visited you during my reading week in October?"

"You are supposed to be _reading_ in that week."

"Well. I could do some reading and some— Sightseeing."

She looked up and saw his lips pulled into a hopeful half-smile.

"Sure. Yeah. End of October?"

"End of October. It's a date."

"Oh, I hope for a few of _these_ before I leave."

"I think I can fit you into my calendar."

Hay dust drifted in the air in front of them, backlit by the setting sun, as she snuggled in closer.

"And to think I only came to rant about them being idiots."

"They _are_ idiots. But, if I can make it any better—"

"You already did."

"Thank you. But I meant, I could stay in contact with Teddy? Just to make sure he is not doing something incredibly moronic?"

She hummed, watching a speck of dirt float across the window.

"Yeah. That might be good, actually."

"So... when do you _have_ to go back?"

"Not for a few hours more."

"Good."

####

The cafe was nearly empty and the lone figure in the corner, bowed over a cup of tea, was rather easy to recognise.

She slid into the seat opposite Teddy and breathed deeply to focus herself.

"You two are complete and utter idiots," she declared when he finally looked up at her, mutely. "I don't even know what to do with you. But one thing I'm not risking is my sister's wellbeing."

"I'd never—"

"Not on purpose, no. But both of you are pretty high-strung right now. And I don't see this going in any good direction if either you try to explain yourself all over again, or she tries to be noble and self-sacrificing and whatever. Either by letting you go or by keeping you. At this point, I'd rather not have any of you say something you can't take back. So—" she watched his hands squeeze the mug. "Take that term to think carefully about each other. What you want from life, each of you, separately. What kind of relationship you see this becoming. You say you don't want any other girl, but _what_ do you want from _Mina_? To wait for you right here, as you go and— and do military stuff? What would you say if she moved to London and actually applied to Imperial? Or if she moved abroad? Do you want her to just stay as she was, or to grow up? And no, it's not me being so smart, it's Aunt Jane's input. She called yesterday, Mina picked up, sounded kinda off and Aunt Jane managed to get it all out of her. Not Mina's fault, Aunt Jane may seem like a ditz sometimes, but she does have a degree in psychology, and it was anyway better than telling _Mom_."

She watched Teddy's face phase from wary, to hurt, to pinched, to discomfited, to wary again.

"So—" he sipped his tea. "You - and your scary aunt - say I shouldn't try to talk to Mina right now."

"Think. Think carefully what you'd want to tell her. What you want to ask her. And yeah, it may seem weird coming from the daughter of my parents, to tell a couple to take a break from each other, but I'd rather you two take a break _now_ , rethink and get or not get together later reasonably, than do something abysmally stupid now and regret it later."

"Like what?"

She sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Like elope and then get divorced or whatever. I mean, seriously. You two have been together since we were all fourteen, and now, after this first year when you were gone for most of the time, you've grown so— so different suddenly. And you have what, four more years. Plus officer school, however much that takes. Plus your Army contract, which is...?"

"Five years of active duty," he whispered into his tea.

"That means at least nine years when you may not see each other for months and months, depending on where you will be and where she will be. Will you be able to keep it up?"

"I hoped— I thought it was working fine. I'd have more chances for time off this year, it was just the first year that was so heavy, and— I didn't notice when it all went so wrong—"

Teddy looked miserable. She wanted to hug him and tell him it would all be OK.

Which she couldn't do. Because it was still up to them.

"Stop that," she said sharply. "That puppy eyes act works _only_ on Mina. One more reason for the two of you not to talk right now. Anyway. Text her, about normal daily stuff. Send her birthday wishes. Even a stupid meme or something. But don't try to pick this up until you see her properly face to face, and _not_ before Christmas."

"What? Why? I'll be here for—"

"A full term. Full autumn term. Ends on sixteenth of December. You take your time thinking carefully and allow Mina the same time. If you think you are done earlier, you think again. And again. Because if you come here in three weeks with some half-cocked plan for you two getting back together, it explodes into your face and you have to get on your train on Sunday evening, leaving her here heartbroken, there will be no Rose to tell you off, as kindly as I can in this situation. There will be only our father, who takes Mina's happiness quite seriously, as you know already."

"Uh."

"Consider that carefully," she lowered her voice. "How lucky you are that the person who called and got Mina to spill was our Aunt Jane, who lives in London, has five kids, no time to travel and generally cheerful disposition, and not our Uncle Richard, who is stationed no more than twenty miles from here and could have been here in under an hour, had he felt the need to straighten you out."

Teddy's eyes widened.

"I've told Mina to make the same inventory - well, Aunt Jane started, but then she called me and made me write it all down - and to ensure that she really seriously thinks about all of this. About herself, about you, about communication and about the future."

"What did— How is she?"

"Weepy."

His face fell.

"I never wanted to— I didn't know it would hurt her. I just thought— It seemed like a way to cheer her up. I know it was stupid! I know now, you don't have to explain again! I just— at the moment, it seemed like a good idea—"

"Yeah. That's why I want you two to _think_. Because Mina's brilliant concept of letting you go for your own good also came from her not really thinking properly. And from the two of you— OK, nevermind. You know, she knows, now you have to consider this all. Slowly."

"Will she be OK?" he asked, still not looking at her.

"She should be. At some point. Just give her breathing space. Wait until December. At least this way you will have three weeks to hash it out, whatever it will be, right? It won't be in weekend-sized pieces."

He nodded slowly, silently.

####

"How is he?"

"Miserable. Basically, they are two human black holes."

"Geez. That must be lovely to be around. Why that idea of waiting until winter break?"

"I can't get any weekend off to be here until the middle of December, and I _want_ to be here in case this all goes sideways. I hope it won't, but who knows. And if they wait until it's properly cold, there is less risk of them celebrating getting back together by doing something stupid outside."

"Like meeting in a stable hayloft?"

She pushed André ineffectively on the shoulder, but he simply dragged her closer and kissed her again.

####

He hadn't noticed that he had been sitting so motionlessly until an elderly lady opposite him asked whether he was alright.

He swallowed and nodded and tried to smile.

He wasn't alright.

And Mina wasn't alright.

And it was his fault.

Well, their shared fault, but he had been the one to start—

So he should damned better start working on resolving this.

He opened the notepad in which he had written down the questions that Rose told him to consider and stared at them, trying to at least somehow put his thoughts in order.

_Do you want her to just wait for you whenever you come back?_

The idea of Mina _not_ being there when he visited was painful— but the idea of Mina _having_ to be there, because she felt it was expected of her, was _hateful_.

He flipped to the next page.

_What if Mina wanted to study abroad?_

He nodded slowly. Looked out of the window.

He had some thinking to do.

  
  



End file.
